VAN WYCK – Occasional showers early Saturday, Dec. 20, did not dampen the Christmas spirit in Van Wyck. Volunteers and firefighters gathered at the community center at 11 a.m. to load and distribute gifts they had prepared for angel tree children and fruit baskets for area seniors. Santa (aka Dennis Straight) arrived in time to help load the gifts and then they were off, with firefighter Chris Madden at the wheel and Santa riding “shotgun.”

Two men who briefly got away with shoplifting more than $2,000 in merchandise from the Indian Land Walmart were nabbed later in the evening when they pressed their luck and tried again at a Walmart in Charlotte.

Williams Zachary Stallings, 22, and Christopher Otman, 25, both of Matthews, N.C., both face charges in Lancaster County of grand larceny, according to a Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office report.

The Homeless Food Order Simulator held Thursday, Dec. 18, at HOPE in Lancaster, 2008 Pageland Highway, showed volunteers what foods to give homeless individuals who have no ability to wash, cook or even heat their food.

The experience for the volunteers, many of them members of the Lancaster Area Coalition for the Homeless (LACH), was eye-opening, they said.